Outcomes and Patient Selection in Laparoscopic vs. Open Liver Resection for HCC and Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastasis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and colorectal liver metastasis (CRLM) are the two most common malignant tumors that require liver resection. While liver transplantation is the best treatment for HCC, organ shortages and high costs limit the availability of this option for many patients and make resection the mainstay of treatment. For patients with CRLM, surgical resection with negative margins is the only potentially curative option. Over the last two decades, laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) has been increasingly adopted for the resection of a variety of tumors and was found to have similar long-term outcomes compared to open liver resection (OLR) while offering the benefits of improved short-term outcomes. In this review, we discuss the current literature on the outcomes of LLR vs. OLR for patients with HCC and CRLM. Although the use of LLR for HCC and CRLM is increasing, it is not appropriate for all patients. We describe an approach to selecting patients best-suited for LLR. The four common difficulty-scoring systems for LLR are summarized. Additionally, we review the current evidence behind the emerging robotically assisted liver resection technology

Nanomedicine platform for targeting activated neutrophils and neutrophil–platelet complexes using an α1-antitrypsin-derived peptide motif

Targeted drug delivery to disease-associated activated neutrophils can provide novel therapeutic opportunities while avoiding systemic effects on immune functions. We created a nanomedicine platform that uniquely utilizes an α1-antitrypsin-derived peptide to confer binding specificity to neutrophil elastase on activated neutrophils. Surface decoration with this peptide enabled specific anchorage of nanoparticles to activated neutrophils and platelet-neutrophil aggregates, in vitro and in vivo. Nanoparticle delivery of a model drug, hydroxychloroquine, demonstrated significant reduction of neutrophil activities in vitro and a therapeutic effect on murine venous thrombosis in vivo. This innovative approach of cell-specific and activation-state-specific targeting can be applied to several neutrophil-driven pathologies